


An Avonlea Valentine

by honsandrebels



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Anne Shirley in Denial, F/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 08:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17659151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honsandrebels/pseuds/honsandrebels
Summary: The Avonlea schoolroom celebrates Valentine's Day.





	An Avonlea Valentine

It was a Monday afternoon on the second week of February, and the schoolchildren of Avonlea had been tasked with the making of valentines. Valentine’s Day had never been a particular favourite holiday of Miss Stacey - too many melancholy memories. But Muriel was familiar with the ways of young adults and knew that this holiday would be foremost in the minds of her older students to the point of distraction. If her students must be made silly over cards and candy, at least the creation of platonic valentines to a special family member would encourage some worthier habits of creativity and gratitude. Thus, at her instruction, the children had been occupied for the last hour in creating valentines for family members to whom they were especially grateful for. 

Diana Barry had addressed hers to Mr Barry ( _Dear Papa, I know you have had a very trying year!_ ). Moody Spurgeon to his grandma, who he was greatly terrified of, but knew she would be most insulted if he had made a card for anyone else ( _Dear Nan, thank you for darning my socks_ ). Josie Pye had made one for Mrs Pye ( _Dear Mama, you are too sweet, thank you for buying me a pink dress last Saturday, and would you mind buying a pink parasol too?)._

Anne, for whom Valentine writing seemed to come as naturally as breathing, had made two - one for Marilla and one for Matthew. Ruby Gillis had made a valentine for her most newly married sister, Alice, who recently had given her some lovely hand-me downs, but greatly longed to work on her valentine for Gilbert Blythe. The object of her affection himself had made a valentine addressed to Mary and the new baby that she and Bash had announced would arrive in the spring. 

The Story Club were so enamoured of the activity that they decided to continue the happy task after school for the rest of the week, though the little sheets of card they laboured on contained much more romantical and fanciful content than the missives overseen by Miss Stacey.  

For their delightful project, Diana and Jane had brought with them ladies magazines featuring masses of pretty floral engravings to cut out and paste. Ruby had presented - to the delight of the others - some velvet and lace ribbons her mother had given her, while Anne had brought her best pen and ink for the occasion. Because she had by far the best handwriting, and knew ever so many big words to garnish a phrase, Anne was also tasked with writing all the girls’ cards, a role she accepted with relish. However by the end of the afternoon Ruby Gillis’ fourth attempt at writing her valentine to Gilbert had tested even Anne’s enthusiasm. 

“Ruby, you cannot have four adjectives to describe Gilbert’s eyes, surely one one (or none) will do”, grumbled Anne, her cheek smudged with ink. Diana, who was in the middle of cutting out a lady’s fan, chuckled at Anne’s remark.

“Oh but surely one is too little” sighed Ruby, wringing her hands with her handkerchief as she paced up and down. “Golly, it's so hard to describe the handsomest and kindest boy in all of Avonlea.”

“Ruby, perhaps an honest: "Gilbert I like you," or maybe a quotation will do” said Jane, ever practical. Ruby could not be placated.

“I do hope I get a valentine from him - Gilbert - I mean. My sister Alice holds the record for the most valentines received in one year at Avonlea - twelve when she was sixteen, and some from Charlottetown too. But all the valentines in the world wouldn’t matter a fig to me if Gilbert gave me one this year” said Ruby, a little dreamy eyed now. 

Anne grumbled that Gilbert Blythe was the most prosaic and least romantic boy she had ever met, to which Diana and Jane insisted - fearful lest that Ruby would get upset - that they were sure that now Gilbert was older (and much more experienced), he would participate in the exchange of valentines as other boys his age had begun to do. Ruby Gillis could only live on hope.

 

* * *

 

And so the fateful day arrived and the whole Avonlea schoolroom fairly brimmed with excitement and expectation. The little ones were jittery on the notion of sweets, while the older set felt a collective frisson of anticipation, prompted by an incipient awareness of the opposite sex that many were just becoming acquainted with.

As everyone expected, Diana Barry and Ruby Gillis had received the most valentines, from a bundle of poesies, to a handful of candy hearts proclaiming “U are Sweet” and cards bearing the most florid and romantical of phrases, and purplish prose pilferings from their mothers’ novels. 

Despite these riches, the valentine that Diana Barry most treasured - though she never said a word - was a pink card that Anne, as messenger, had handed to Diana that morning. The card, which bore nothing but the words: _Mademoiselle Barry est tres jolie,_  written in a crude but determined hand, had made Diana blush so that Josie Pye to remark in a very loud voice that Diana Barry’s face was almost as red as Anne Shirley’s hair. 

It was thus a comfort to both that Josie Pye had only received two valentines this year: one from Moody (hardly an accomplishment because Moody had given every girl his age a valentine) and one from her brother (because his mother had insisted). True Anne had only received two herself, but at least Charlie Sloane’s was genuinely felt. Anne, who for all her virtues had her own little share of vanity and was touched by this little homage to her person, had bequeathed a fairly dazzling smile to Charlie Sloane that made the boy lightheaded even when he recalled it throughout the day, though the numerous recountings of the moment made his normally equable seat partner (Gilbert Blythe) unusually irritable.

On the subject of Gilbert, poor Ruby Gillis was quite miserable when she realised that he had not given her a card yet, and with the waning school day she was beginning to contend with the notion that she might not get a valentine from Gilbert, not at all. To be sure, he had smiled and thanked her warmly when she had given him her lovingly made valentine, but she did not spy a particular degree more affection or enthusiasm in their exchange than when other girls gave him their valentines too. However, the pain was easier to bear when she discovered (through intense questioning of every eligible girl in the class) that not a single one of them either had received card or candy from Gilbert Blythe.

 “You were right, Anne” sighed Ruby after lunch, “Gilbert Blythe is the least romantic boy in all of Avonlea. But oh, just makes him even more handsomely aloof, and makes me want him more.”  Anne rolled her eyes in response. 

Soon the school day was coming to a close. Ruby, still feeling a little low, had cheered up considerably when Mrs Allen’s very handsome nephew, Peter King, had dropped by the school especially to hand deliver Ruby a poesy of roses and a request to walk her and her sisters home. Ruby, in an effort to rouse some jealousy in Gilbert Blythe, had accepted with much enthusiasm but when she glanced back, Peter in arm, she was disappointed to see that Gilbert had been writing the entire time and - despite Ruby speaking in her loudest voice - had not seemed to notice the exchange between herself and Peter that had seemed to so absorb the rest of the classroom.  

 

* * *

 

By the time Anne Shirley had arrived home that day she looked a little weary - possibly from being a proxy for so many valentines - so much so that Marilla had let her go straight to her room to rest instead of chores before supper. Plopping down on her bed, Anne grabbed her school satchel to unearth a book, when something fell from her bag and rolled onto the floor. Jumping down to have a look at it, she found a something round, tightly covered in tissue paper and a blue ribbon. Someone had found a way to sneak it into her bag. Unwrapping it, she gasped in delight when she found what was within: a green apple with the most beautiful blush of pink. 

A miracle: an apple of this freshness in February. Improbable too when she bit in it, expecting it to be beastly sour, but instead finding it lightly tart and sweet, and very fragrant.

But who could have given it to her? Moody Spurgeon? Surely not. Charlie Sloane? Anne might have suspected him had he not already given her a valentine today. Besides, he didn’t seem to be capable of such slyness and subtlety. Before she could bid it to go away, the memory of the first day she had met Gilbert Blythe, and the time he had offered her an apple (though he had just met her then) rose in her mind.

No. It couldn’t be him. He had barely spoken to her today, thought Anne.

But hadn’t she studiously avoided him too all day too? These days, she tried to not look at him too much, let she catch eyes with Ruby Gillis. It was hard because he was always saying such interesting things. She recalled Diana’s words once that the sweetest and the best apples in all of Avonlea could be found at the Blythe Orchard. She thought too of something else Cole had once said, at the train station. Of Gilbert having a crush on her. 

Gilbert Blythe. Sweet on her. Ridiculous. Poppycock. 

True, she no longer hated him, hadn’t for a long time, even before he went away. In fact, if she were being honest with herself, she would admit he was the most interesting and smartest boy she knew. It was one of the keenest pleasures of her young life, to beat him at class, because she knew was it was true victory, one that came from sheer hard work. And if Ruby wasn’t so insistent, she could admit that Gilbert was very handsome. Handsomer than Peter King, that’s for sure.

And sometimes she thought he looked at her in a way that she instinctively knew he did not do for other girls, even Ruby. A way that made her feel queer in her stomach. But more than likely this was admiration for her mind, for her gumption. Not in _that_ way. What did Diana say that Gilbert once told her? That being smart was better than being pretty. He would say that.

Gilbert Blythe liking Anne Shirley.  The idea was ludicrous. 

As she had told Ruby, Gilbert Blythe was incapable of romance. Why else had he frowned so disagreeably when Charlie Sloane gave her his valentine? Surely that was because he found the whole project silly. Hadn’t she been right about him not giving any valentines of his own? 

More likely Diana had given her the apple as a surprise gift, thought Anne. Though curiously, Anne decided not ask her the next day, for fear that she hadn't and who Diana might speculate had given her the apple instead. 

At any rate, definitely not Blythe. Preposterous to even think of him, thought Anne. 

And so Anne Shirley put the notion to the back of her mind, and refused to contemplate on the romanticism of Gilbert Blythe any longer. 

But if her heart jumped a little, when Gilbert smiled so when she beat him at the spelling bee the next day, as if he had won and not she, well that was a show of weakness led by the general excitement of a trying week of that was Valentines. _Wasn’t it?_

 


End file.
